The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for positioning a nut plate to be fixed to an adjoining plate, particularly, wherein the nut plate is automatically supplied and positioned at the predetermined position and a rivet is also automatically supplied and driven thereon.
Generally, a plate on which a nut is mounted (called hereinafter merely "a nut plate") is fixed to a rear side of an plate (skin) of an aircraft, for example, for facilitating bolt fastening work. The nut plates of this kind usually comprise a plate body and a nut mounted on the plate body to be movable only in one direction. The nut plate is attached by rivets at predetermined positions on both sides of the plate body. In this work, it is required for an operator to position the driving position of the rivet exactly. This positioning work is hard and a slight shift of the riveting position makes it difficult to exactly perform the bolt fastening working after the riveting operation.
In order to solve such problem, in the prior art, for example, there is provided Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 59-14026 (14026/1984) disclosing a handheld riveting device provided with a punch to be fitted in the hole of the plate body and a pilot bar to be fixed into a nut fastening hole.
However, the riveting device of the type described above solves only the problem of the positioning of the nut plate to be riveted, but the riveting device is of the hand-held type, so that the positioning and riveting work requires that the operator spend much time and labor.